Photography has always been about capturing the essence of a moment, but sometimes unwanted objects get in the way. People often take pictures of famous landscapes, and most of the time those places are too crowded. A messy, crowded background can be irritating and in the past, removing unwanted objects in photos has been a tedious and time-consuming task involving spending hours scrubbing pixel after pixel with Photoshop.
However, with the recent explosion in AI advancements, cleaning up photos to look more professional & beautiful has become much more efficient and accessible than ever before. In this post, we will comb through a few notable websites that offer this function (for free!). With them, hopefully you will never have to worry about being photobombed again.
Challenges of cleaning up photos with traditional methods
Previously, the main method of removing objects in photos consisted of cropping, erasing, and patching. While they can be effective, they require a lot of time, skill, and experience to achieve the desired results. The task multiplies in complexity when faced with multiple people and objects to remove.
AI-powered tools for object removal have revolutionized the way we approach photo editing. These tools use machine learning algorithms to analyze the image and identify unwanted objects. Then, they replace the object with a seamless background that matches the surrounding pixels. This process is much faster and more efficient than traditional methods, and it produces consistent results with minimal effort. All it left for you to do is choose the right tools to make use of AI technology to remove objects and make your favorite photos perfect.
3 Online Tools to Remove Unwanted Objects
There are many effective tools available for removing objects in photos, ranging from basic software features to more advanced editing applications. If you are looking for an reliable apps that specialized in helping you edit your photos, here are our top suggestions:
1. SnapEdit
SnapEdit is a multifunctions photo editing tool that offers background removal, photo enhancing and unwanted objects removal.This website does a wonderful job identifying the correct targets that can be removed to improve image quality.
For SnapEdit, the process is dead simple.
- Step 1: Upload a picture that needs cleaning up by going to the SnapEdit’ website on your PC or Mobile device. You can also access it HERE.
- PC users can Upload or Drag and drop images into the “Upload Photo” area and its vicinity. For mobile users, simply tap on the Upload button and you will be prompted to choose a photo from your library to start editing.
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Step 2: Choose which objects to be removed
Once uploaded, the objects and people in the image will be identified by AI algorithms. One cool feature this app has is the AutoAI option that prompts the app to remove unwanted people and objects automatically, leaving only the main subjects. Of course, this feature is a hard-one to get right, however I think that it’s effective around 4 out of 5 times testing. You can also compare the edited image with the original and make changes with the Brush option if needed.
As you can see from the sample picture above, the AutoAI function actually understands that this photo is more likely an attempt to capture the landscape and therefore does not necessarily require a main subject.
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Step 3: See and adjust result
The result is good but not perfect just yet. You can see black vestiges of furniture and some weird lighting in the middle of the photo. For this, you can continue to make small changes until you get a satisfactory result using the Brush mode to edit out any unwanted objects left.
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Step 4: Download
After editing, click the Download button on the right top of the app to download the beautiful image you’ve edited or share it directly to your social media. SnapEdit currently offers the ability to download edited images in 1200×1200 or 1920×1900 picture sizes. You can upgrade to their PRO membership for more download options and an ad-free experience.
2. Cleanup Pictures
Cleanup Pictures is a much more familiar tool to most users. Much like its name, the website focuses entirely on removing any unwanted details from images. This includes: objects, people, texts, defects that it may have found in your photos. Cleanup focuses on more in-depth use cases of editing out image details such as for ecommerce photography, creative agencies, removing logos/watermarks for more efficient workflow.
In order to use it, simply open the Cleanup.pictures website and upload your photo in the same way as SnapEdit (most photo editing web apps work the same way for convenience sake).
Testing Cleanup on this relatively simple photo, we can see that it does a decent job removing the 3 main subjects in the photo (leaving the landscape). However, blurry patches remained behind which does not appear to improve with further Brush edit.
CleanUp currently only offers the choice to download the edited image in Standard Definition (low resolution & auto-compressed) – you can choose to upgrade to its Premium version.
3. PicWish
PicWish is another popular app to remove unwanted objects. You can use it by going to Picwish website and navigate to its Retouch tool.
Testing out Picwish on the beach camping photo from before, the eye test says that PicWish successfully removed the objects and people in the photo similar to SnapEdit. Blemishes are hard to spot and there are no noticeable color mismatches.
In conclusion, removing unwanted objects in photos is no longer a challenge thanks to modern technology and software. When choosing a method for deleting objects, it’s important to consider the size and complexity of the object, as well as the surrounding background. By using the right tools and techniques, anyone can create high-quality photos that are free of unneeded details.